Ecostorm joins forces with The Ecologist magazine to form specialist film unit

In a major new venture, Ecostorm has teamed up with The Ecologist magazine, the world’s most widely read environmental magazine, to launch the Ecologist Film Unit (EFU), which will make hard-hitting, investigative films to be streamed on the internet, broadcast on TV and at film festivals and events.

Building on the Ecologist’s reputation for agenda setting reporting on environmental issues and Ecostorm’s investigative film production skills, the EFU will make documentary films that lift the lid on a host of unreported environmental scandals that will shock viewers out of any misplaced complacency that the planet’s problems can be solved simply by switching light bulbs and more recycling!

The EFU’s debut is “Hell For Leather”, an investigation which examines the appalling, and unpublicised human and environmental cost of the leather trade in Southern Asia (see seperate news release).

“The EFU will take the kind of leading edge environmental reporting we are known for to a much wider and more diverse audience, in a much more immediate way. Ecologist editor, Pat Thomas, said. “It will also offer an antidote to the kind of ‘tick-box’ environmental reporting of some mainstream news and provide a model of how print and online media can work effectively together to drive change”.

“The launch of the EFU is an exciting move for the Ecologist” said publisher Jemima Ransome “The world wide web is fuelling a new grassroots environmental activism that the Ecologist believes will be crucial in motivating widespread and meaningful action. At the same time it is also an invaluable medium for engaging a new, younger audience with environmental issues – important since they are the future caretakers of our planet”.

The EFU is currently working on a number of exciting follow ups to “Hell For Leather”, for release later in 2008, and is actively seeking commissions from television news outfits. www.theecologist.org